February 26, 2025 • 56 mins
On December 26, 1996, six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in her Boulder, Colorado home. Hours before the case even hit the news, convicted pedophile Gary Oliva called his friend Michael Vail, confessing that he had "accidentally" killed her. So why, 28 years later, does this case remain unsolved? Is justice within reach, or has it already been served without anyone realizing?
Cold Case Investigator & Private detective Jason Jensen, forensic psychologist Craig Wetterer, and insider Michael Vail break down the tangled web of evidence, misinformation, and media-fueled speculation. Why won’t DNA solve this case? Why did investigative journalists in the ‘90s double down on their accusations against the Ramsey family? And why, after all this time, does the case remain frozen in uncertainty?
Buckle up—this isn’t the story you think you know.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the JonBenet Ramsey Case
02:13 The Phone Call That Changed Everything
06:30 Media Influence and Public Perception
10:28 Law Enforcement's Focus on Family
12:50 Gary Oliva's Confession and Its Implications
16:55 The Role of DNA in the Investigation
20:19 Understanding DNA Evidence
27:34 The Ransom Note and Handwriting Analysis
30:42 The Psychology of Serial Killers
33:25 Understanding the Mind of Gary
36:50 Investigative Challenges and Evidence
40:08 The Role of DNA in Cold Cases
49:49 Conversations with Gary: Insights and Reflections
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/killer-psychologist--6020549/support.
Cold Case Investigator & Private detective Jason Jensen, forensic psychologist Craig Wetterer, and insider Michael Vail break down the tangled web of evidence, misinformation, and media-fueled speculation. Why won’t DNA solve this case? Why did investigative journalists in the ‘90s double down on their accusations against the Ramsey family? And why, after all this time, does the case remain frozen in uncertainty?
Buckle up—this isn’t the story you think you know.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to the JonBenet Ramsey Case
02:13 The Phone Call That Changed Everything
06:30 Media Influence and Public Perception
10:28 Law Enforcement's Focus on Family
12:50 Gary Oliva's Confession and Its Implications
16:55 The Role of DNA in the Investigation
20:19 Understanding DNA Evidence
27:34 The Ransom Note and Handwriting Analysis
30:42 The Psychology of Serial Killers
33:25 Understanding the Mind of Gary
36:50 Investigative Challenges and Evidence
40:08 The Role of DNA in Cold Cases
49:49 Conversations with Gary: Insights and Reflections
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/killer-psychologist--6020549/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Killer Psychologist. I'm Dana Anderson, a forensic psychologist and.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Your host of the show.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Killer Psychologist is for true crime fanatics and anyone intrigued
with the dark side of psychology. Welcome to the Killer Psychologist.
Today we're going to discuss the John Benet Ramsey case.
John Beney was found dead in her home on December
(00:30):
twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six, and today I have with
me here Michael Vail, Craig Weder, and Jason Jensen to
discuss this case. And I want to hear from you,
Michael first.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
About your history with this case.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
For people that don't know you, you are very familiar
with Gary Oliva, who is alleged you have accidentally killed
John Benay. And I want to go back to December
twenty six, nineteen ninety six. This has now been twenty
eight years and people are still so obsessed with this
(01:16):
case and frustrated because a lot of people feel like
it hasn't been solved. And I would love to hear
your opinion.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Is this case solvable? Do we have the right guy?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But going back twenty eight years, you gow a phone
call like the following day of this murder from Gary Oliba,
and I want to hear from you about that phone
call and what did he say to you?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, you know, it's it's quite a story. We got
twenty eight years. It's a journey for justice. And what
happened was on December twenty six, nineteen ninety six. This
is one of the happiest times in my life. I
had just married my high school sweetheart, I had custody
(02:06):
of my twelve year old son, and life was great.
I was purchasing my first house on Thousand Oaks, very
exciting time in my life. My family had just gone
to sleep, and then I get the phone call and
it's just before midnight on December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six,
and I had new instantly the voice. I hadn't heard
(02:28):
his voice in years, but I knew it was Gary.
And Gary sobbing into the phone like I never heard
anybody to this day, never heard anybody sobbing like this.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
And he's like, oh heard, oh little girl, like he
couldn't even get.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The words out, and I was like, whoa, this is real,
this is scary.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I went from the Christmas.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Good vibes to that phone call, just absolutely shocking. Immediately,
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Where are you what?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That's your address? What's your phone number? And you know,
he gave me some information. I won't get into the
details right this minute, but I'll tell you something. When
he realized that I was trying to get his information
so I could turn him in, he just hung up
on me, and I was like in shock. I'm like,
oh my god. Gary called me. He said he was
(03:22):
in Bolder. You know, keep in mind, Gary been mailing
me stuff. We used to use the US mail in
the nineties, in the eighties and nineties after high school.
You know, just I give you some information. I went
to high school with Gary was a classmate of mine.
In a very small high school. Everybody knew everybody. So
after high school I kept in touch with people because
I took a TV radio communication class and I accessed
(03:45):
to a radio station at the college and I would
make funny cassette tapes and stuff, and I would send
it to my high school friends. Gary was one of
those that got the cassettes.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
He loved it.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
He mailed me back a cassette. This went on for years,
off and on, and then I get the phone call
in ninety six. Gary had been mailing me the stuff
with a postmark from Grant's Pass, Oregon. So when he
told me he was in Bolder, it was a real
eye opener because I did note that some of our
mutual friends from high school had gone to the University
(04:18):
of Boulder, so I knew it was in Bolder. I
knew he had heard a little girl, and that was
very obvious to me. So the next morning, and I
couldn't get information to call the police, or I would
have called the police. But the next morning, here I am.
You know, Gary's biggest mistake was calling a guy who
was a publicist because I would get the newspapers on
(04:38):
my front porch every morning. Oh, I head out there
to get the newspaper. Believe me, this is before social
media and all this. It was all about the newspaper
and TV news. So I go get the newspaper and
I'm reading the front page. Okay, I flip it over.
It's still the front page, and it says girls six
found slain in Boulder, Colorado.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Now keep them.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
There was no name. It didn't say John Benet Ramsey
or anything like that. All I saw was girls six
slain and Boulger and I'm like, holy crap, Gary killed
a little girl. Immediately, I called the phone number at
the bottom of the article. I reported it to the police,
and then I told everybody, told my wife, I told everybody.
(05:23):
I said, hey, sit back and watch. Gary's going to
get arrested any day, now, you know, he did something terrible.
And a week went by, and another week went by. Well,
it seemed what seemed like about three months before I'm like,
why didn't Gary get arrested for this? So I called
the police a second time. By this time, there been
(05:43):
so many crazy people calling the crazy people line. I
called the John Bunny crazy person line. So the police
officer answered the phone and I go, hey, I've got
a tip. I've got important tip about John Bney. He's like,
hold on, I'll put you through to the crazy person line.
We know it basically, and I get put through to
the answering machine. Leave your tip here. I left my
tip on that answering machine. I'm sure now looking back retrospect,
(06:07):
it was buried with all these other leads. Meanwhile, the
shocking part was seeing on the grocery store shelves. This
was completely shocking to me to think that the parents
would be accused of something so horrible, to lose your
daughter in such a horrific way and then to be
blamed for it. I don't think there's a worse hell
(06:29):
on earth. And my heart just went out to these
people right from the get go. So that's around ninety
six here. Then we get into two thousand and two.
That would be the next interaction I had with a
homicide detectives with the DA Alex Hunter of Ulder County,
And I'll let you talk, but it's nice to be
(06:51):
able to say the whole paragraph and get it out.
So that's ninety six to two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, thank you so much, Jensen. How do you think
the media played a role in this early on by
talking about this case and you know, making allegations that
the parents were suspects or the brother who was nine years.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Old at that time.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
How do you think that has continues to still impact
the case and people's perception about who they believe is
responsible for death.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Well, I mean, it doesn't really leave much to speculate here.
A Typically, law enforcement, especially use legacy media for many,
many years. They turned to journalists, they turned to news
stations and things like that to get the story out
and still to this day, media relies on that relationship
(07:49):
with law enforcement, so they take their information from law enforcement.
So even in this case where law enforcement got it wrong,
but they pitched it out there repeatedly that it was
a family member, that was a family member, that was
a family member. So that's all that we as a
consuming audience in the public have to rely on, is
(08:12):
what's been fed from law enforcement through the media to
us the reader or somebody watching it on the news.
So even though a credible tip comes through and should
have been treated more carefully, as we learn now you
know twenty eight years later that this in my opinion,
(08:33):
is the one responsible.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
For her death.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
We still have to this day people that believe the
false story, the false narrative that it was a family member,
and that Patsy Ramsey was the author of the ransom
note left behind. So it's no surprise to me. But
it's hard to unring a bell, Ain't that right?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Craig and I want to hear from Craig what or
from a law enforcement perspective because he has you know,
he's a retired law enforcement officer. Let's think about the
motivation from law enforcement giving a statement to the press.
You kind of want to give the community the illusion
(09:17):
that they're safe or that they've got this under control,
Like we isolated the perpetrator instead of making the society
fear that it's the unknown person who's still out there,
like create panic and distrust in the police.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
Yeah, sometimes that is the strategy that law enforcement uses.
Like Jason said, I've seen this happen in these investigations
where who they think is responsible and based on some
facts or again sometimes it's speculation. It's kind of like hypotheses,
you know, like they have educated guesses about who may
be responsible, and then they get locked in on that
(09:53):
narrative and they sort of ignore other possibilities. We all
know it's cognitivis is that we you know that us
sort of have we get locked in on something right
a specific like we think that this family member is
responsible because you know, oftentimes we know that you murders
that are happening, we generally turn to family members, usually
(10:13):
at the spouse or a partner or something that is
the first to be looked at in any kind of
homicide case. And likewise, when you have a child that's
been murdered. They're going to be looking at the family.
They look at everybody, obviously, but they do look at
the family, and they look at any of those connections.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You know, it's so interesting what you said about the
parents are the first to be looked at in this case.
Lou Smith told me they were the first to be
looked at. And not only did he look at them
with a fine tooth comb, he had a forensic expert
go through their computers and he told me flat out
that there was no excuse the word porn. There was
(10:49):
no porn on their computers to speak of. There was
no nothing that would indicate something of this crime's nature.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That was the first thing he did was look at
the parents, and he immediately discovered that they were the
nicest parents. They were the best parents. We all should
hope that we had parents as good as the Ramseys
worked to their kids. Patsy Ramsey was inspiring her daughter.
Her daughter wanted to.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Be a musician.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Her daughter wanted to be a singer. Her daughter enjoyed performing,
and she encouraged it. And that's the kind of thing
you want with your parents.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Getting back to the parents, and there seemed to be
this presumption. A lot of people just assumed there was
some in something insidious between the parents, like sexual abuse,
so she wet the bed. And sometimes these things aren't
true or found it at all, they're not, but it
gets out in the media and then it's repeated through
(11:51):
the years, through the decades.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Do people hold these beliefs to be true?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And then people look for this information and like confirmation bias,
looking for information to support.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That belief system.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
To this date, people who believe it's the brother who
is nine at the time, or still believe it's Patsy
and have all this information, but when in fact, actually
the information's not accurate. And so we can talk about
some people before Gary Oliva and have made some false confessions.
(12:27):
Perhaps that's why it's been difficult for people to trust
this statement from Gary. However, it's not a new statement.
It goes all the way back to the date of
her death, the twenty.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Sixth of December nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
One thing I want to ask Michael is that his
story's been the same all along, right, like all throughout
it hasn't changed.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Well, no, it sure hasn't. In fact, when you think
about the scariest part of this is is that I
received that phone call before it was in the newspaper.
I did some check up on this around twenty sixteen.
I was able to get the actual newspaper from the
twenty seventh from the La Times, and there was article
I saw didn't have any mention to John Benney in it.
(13:19):
It just said a girl six was slain in Boulder.
That's all I needed to know to call the police
the next morning when I saw the newspaper. But I
also did follow up with Denver. None of the newspaper's
course had reported it until the morning of the twenty seventh.
Gary has tried to be evasive from time to time
over the years, but you know the fact is we
(13:39):
come back right back around and he's admitted. He doesn't
deny it to me, he admits it to me. He
wants to get the message of Bobo out to the world,
which is another unique aspect of this. He wants to
us to be ambassadors for Bobo. If he has a
code name when he's in prison and stuff. He can't
(14:01):
say John Beney on the phone to me. So he's
come up with these names, and one of them is bobo,
so he can say bobo on the phone all day
long and the game members sitting next to Mark going
to know that he's talking about John Benet because he
would surely get his He would get beat up if
he had said this something like that. So it's amazing
(14:24):
to think that Lou Smidt I was in contact with
him until he passed in twenty ten. He had told
me the DNA was compromised at the crime scene and
that the police were hyper focused on the parents. And
then after he passed another gentleman by the name of
Olie Gray on the side detective with a fantastic track record,
(14:44):
he picked up the reins. He was there till twenty sixteen.
In twenty sixteen, I realized when after Ali Gray had passed,
that I felt like I was only one actually who
knew the details of this case.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Within month, Gary was arrested for something on his phone
that was so bad he got a ten year sentence.
So I'll let you pick it up from here.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, so my understanding, he's a registered sex offender in
Colorado and he violated the terms and conditions of his
whether it was parle or probation, so probably had some
child pornography, I'm guessing, and ten years that's a long sentence.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It was some serious it was a little bit beyond
child pornography.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
What was on his phone. It was.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Something that I have difficulty getting my tongue to say so,
but just imagine what could be the worst thing, right,
That's what he had on his phone. This is a
weird time to talk about the positive sides to Gary,
but I'll tell you something. This is a guy who
could have been a phenomenal artist, just an amazing artist
(15:56):
to talent. He had this talent back in high school.
And I've got a package here with tons of his
artwork that he's been mailing me, and he just gets
better and better at it. It's interesting that this little girl,
John Bennet is so powerful that years later, twenty eight
years later, it's really actually fantastic thing that people still
(16:19):
care and that people are still carrying the torch for
this little girl.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
The twenty sixteen arrest, he went to prison. I was asked,
can you find out from Gary the details of what
happened with the John Bennet? And I'm like, what right
to Gary? I don't think I could do that. Well,
I thought about it for about two weeks, and I go,
you know what, I've got a lot of questions about this.
(16:47):
I've got a ton of questions about this case, and
only Gary can answer it.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
So I started.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I wrote Gary a letter in prison, not thinking he
would reply or anything. Well, boom, all of a sudden,
I'm getting a lot letter back. So I mail him
another letter, email, another letter back. I'd ask him a
few more questions. We went back and forth like this.
It was very difficult to communicate letter by letter and
have to wait a week or two for the next
one to show up. So I said, Gary, why don't
(17:14):
we start talking.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
On the phone.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well that's when the telephone interview started, the prison interview,
phone calls, and I was getting all kinds of details
about the case from Gary's own mouth.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It seemed like that timeline where he's incarcerated, and these
telephone calls are being recorded and this information is presented,
this might be a good time to, you know, file charges.
Like I'm just curious, and maybe Craig can weigh in,
(17:48):
as he's also an attorney. Why don't we think charges
have ever been filed?
Speaker 6 (17:55):
This is the sort of. The question I have again
for Michael too, is that I obviously the police know
about Gary, right, I mean that you have reported this
can essentially this confession that he gave. But have they
actually interviewed Gary at all with regard to this case
(18:16):
or do you know?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I do know, I am aware that they have in
the past. Now, keep in mind there's a whole new
batch of cold case team members now. So if you
hear me talk about the Keystone cops, I'm talking about
ninety six, and we're talking about police that didn't steal
the crime scene. They came in there and destroyed evidence,
(18:39):
They compromised the DNA on the crime scene. It was
just a complete mess. But now you've got these experienced,
genius hero police at the Boulder PD Cold Case Team.
We've got a new sergeant you know, who's doing an
amazing job. And I'm really holding out hope. However, and
Jason confirm this. They really are stuck in this DNA mentality.
(19:05):
Even though some people will say, oh, Louse Smith said
DNA will solve this case. Of course, DNA would solve
this case. But the DNA has been compromised.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Lou Smith told me personally that the DNA was compromised
at the crime scene. But then again he told other
people that the DNA will solve this, and both of
those statements are true.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Jason Jensen is just ready to tell us he's the
DNA mastermind. In fact, Jason left me a six minute
audio message about why this case isn't a DNA case,
and I listened to it this morning before we got on.
But obviously I want to hear from Jason Jensen because
so many people are just caught in this thinking, look,
(19:52):
let's just be honest, average person doesn't really understand DNA
and forensic science and then applying it to the case.
So I think it's great time for Jason to sort
of educate us on like why or why not this
case isn't going to be solved through DNA. So people
are like thinking that it's just going to be this
magic DNA check he was there at the scene and
(20:12):
then we go arrest him and it's not quite like that.
So Jason, I know you have a lot to say
about this, Like.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
I'll chime in on why maybe maybe for all charters
I'm involved. Yet, you know, in the absence of DNA,
what does that mean, is circumstantial? Is there direct evidence
all of that stuff. So you know, I'll time in
on that, but I'm curious to hear what Jason has
to say about the DNA issue.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Here just for understanding, just real quick, I'm just going
to give a little background about me. Yeah, I'm a
private investigator, and you know, oftentimes there's a stigma that,
you know, what we're good at is chasing cheaters down
and things like that. But there's different kinds of private investigators,
different kinds of investigations that private investigators do. One of
(20:56):
the things that I'm unique in is that not only
do I have a master's degree in criminal justice, but
I have also done training with law enforcement for a
crime scene reconstruction as well as blood pattern analysis. And
in twenty seventeen, me and an attorney and a retired
(21:16):
journalist formed the Cold Case Coalition. One of the things
that we established through the Cold Case Coalition was Inner
Mountain Forensics, a nonprofit DNA lab, so I had access
to some of the brightest minds in DNA analysis as
(21:36):
well as genetic genealogy. So I've learned a lot in
my capacity as a co founder of that and one
of the things that I've really come to understand is
DNA isn't always suspect DNA, wharying some cases like the
Golden State Killer, where Joseph Dangelo's DNA positively matched semen
(22:03):
left at the crime scene, which led to his arrested
and ultimate conviction. For many of the cases, it doesn't
always mean that DNA is going to lead to a suspect. Here,
in this particular case of John Benna, they've identified an
unknown profile and they call it UM one in all
(22:24):
the reports. UN one stands for unknown Male Profile Number one.
They don't have a UM two, they don't have a
UM three. And so any time that somebody comes up
as a suspect and they collect a DNA sample from
the individual, they compare with the UN one to see
(22:45):
if it leads to a match. Now, clearly, if there
was a match, that would be suspect DNA. But if
there isn't a match, it doesn't mean that they're not guilty.
It doesn't mean that they're not you know, what if
there was an accomplice, whether there was a partner, What
if the DNA that they've analyzed goes to an investigator
(23:07):
or a crime scene technician or a lab personnel. It
doesn't always mean that DNA leads to a suspect. And
in this particular case, they're not using nineteen ninety six
style DNA, where all that they really could test in
that era was large quantities of either semen, saliva or blood.
(23:36):
That's not what they're analyzing here. What they're analyzing here
is touch DNA. Touch DNA didn't become a thing in
tell around two thousand and five, two thousand and six,
two thousand and seven, and it really has become a staple,
you know, in technology advances nowadays, so they'll immediately go
to touch DNA analysis, just like in the Brian Coberger case,
(24:00):
or they took a DNA sample off the knife sheath,
but because it's fresh, there's no risk of degradation, there's
no risk of contamination. We're talking in this particular case,
the touch DNA really didn't become an issue until the
mid two thousands, and that's the time frame that they
(24:21):
did a second round of DNA analysis. In John Viney's case,
what they first did was in nineteen ninety seven, they
did a stain a bloodstains sample testing from the crotch
of the underwear. They cut it out and they took
half of the sample and tested it through the Colorado
(24:42):
State Crime Lab. From that, they got a major profile
that they attribute from the blood to beat John Viney's.
Then they got a minor profile of nine of the
necessary alleles of a mail and that's what they identified
as unknown mail. Then when there was a change of
the guard with the DA's office and Mary Lacey became
(25:06):
the DA for Boulder County, they went ahead and authorized
another round of testing. This time they submitted it to
body laboratories or body technologies and from that they got
the same results. And at that time there was no
genetic genealogy or anything like that. All they did is
(25:28):
recreate the steps that were done previously on just more
items and just confirmed through CODIS style DNA, so STR,
which is different and they can't use SDR results with
genetic genealogy. That's a misunderstanding of there are two different systems,
(25:50):
two different process and they require a lot more of
the genome to test in the genealogy sites, so not STR.
They're required to have SMPS. Through SMPS they can do
genetic genealogy. The reason why they had that ability in
(26:11):
the Golden State killer case, even though some of the
crimes went back to sixty eight. Is because SEMEN is
a much larger sample with more competent you know, mel
style DNA, because it's like a deposit, not just epithelial
where you just touch and leave just a minute little.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Particle, you know, microscopic level. So it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
And because of that nature, they don't have the technology
to do genetic genealogy with touch DNA of a decor
dated nature that was touched DNA from twenty eight years ago.
It's just not going to happen. And that's when they
did the third round of testing through Boulder just in
twenty twenty four. Their reaction now is we don't have
(27:01):
the technology, and that's what they inform the Ramses during
their visit last month. So here we are. You're not
going to prove the case through DNA no matter what.
You've got to have an exact match of that person
and if it's not suspect DNA but a third party
is not going to lead to any conviction. And that
(27:22):
brings us back in full circle here where you got
to use other evidence. And you know we've covered this
between US three without Michael in the past. The ransom
note is clear evidence. You know, that leads to a
suspect if you can identify the handwriting, and that's where
we're at. We believe that the handwriting match is Gara Leiva.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Handwriting analysis is interesting and people can fixate on that analysis,
and I know you experts have covered this, but it's
also the content of that letter, and there's some key
things that stood out, like beheading and just some unusual
(28:07):
word phrasing that would be very inconsistent with the parents
in this case. For example, it's bizarrely written, and there's
themes in there that just beheading. For example, Michael, you
describe some of the artwork from Gary that involves beheading
of children.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh, yeah, definitely from the prison letters that I was getting. Yeah,
that was a current theme. That was a definite theme.
Putting them on a spit in where you turned the
handle and you put them over flames what he calls
squat and pop or something the sound of the cooking,
(28:49):
and he would draw a dumbell with the head off,
or different cartoon characters or in the case of Boop
or some of these other characters. Also lots of images
of John Bennet. What shocking is how amazing this guy
(29:10):
can be imprisoned for two years and still draw a
perfect image of John Bennet that looks like a photograph.
This is a guy who was racked with remorse, griddled
with grief like you've never seen. He's not happy that
this happened. Here's my take on this. This is a
(29:31):
fellow who's an alcoholic with a history of children abuse,
and a serious alcoholic at the time in ninety six.
He went too far. It was an accident because he
didn't mean to kill her. And this is a shock.
It was a shock to me to realize, so I
can imagine it's a shock for your audience to fear
(29:53):
this that this wasn't actually meant to kill her. It
was part of some sort of acting out, some sort
of a fantasy that he had. So I think Jason
could expound on this a little bit more.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
What I learned in my research is I dug into
Gary's nineteen ninety victim and learned who she was and
obtained old photographs of her from back in that time frame,
and she has a striking resemblance of jumpin a which
(30:33):
I found to be quite intriguing overall, because I'm sure
you guys would would agree that pedophiles have a type,
and so most of their victims are going to either
fit that same age criteria or they're going to look
the same.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Even in my experience working on Ted Bundy's case, all
of his victims were of the same type. They all
had a resemblance of Diane Edwards, his girlfriend during college
that dumped them then. And it seems strange that all
these serial killers always seem to have someone that they blame,
(31:12):
a love interest that rejected them, and then they go
on some killing spree of everyone that looks or reminds
them of that person. But going back to type and
going back to Gary, I believe that he saw Jambinet
and it reminded him of his nineteen ninety victim, and
so he was living out that fantasy of his relationship
(31:35):
with that young lady, and he was trying to recreate
that with John Benet. But in order to do that,
he had to remove her from the Hume well, and
he felled miserably to the degree that all the things
he tried to do to get her out, tried stuffing
her in a suitcase, tried tying a cord on her,
(31:56):
wrists in her neck to pull her out the basement window,
which we know ended up strangling her. So all of
these different things that he tried to do to get
her from the home. Rather than just alter his plan,
he was fixated on executing just the plan as he
predicted he would accomplish. He premeditated climbing through the window
(32:19):
and then going out the window. He didn't alter his
process or his thoughts like, well, this isn't working. Maybe
I should just pick her up and whisk her out
of a door. But you know, she ends up withering
away in the basement and he makes his way out
the window and tries to avoid detection.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So I want to bring it back to Michael Vell
because I want to make sure I understand that Gary left.
And are we thinking that he didn't know she had died,
like he abandoned the scene and left.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Well, it always baffled me. Why when that first phone
call ninety six, you know, on December twenty sixth ninety six,
why did he say he hurt a little girl when
the next morning the newspaper said she was slain. So
years later I have now come to the conclusion after
interviewing Gary from the horse's mouth himself. This fellow was
(33:20):
not aware that she was she was dead at the time.
It all makes sense. I heard a little girl. He
didn't say he killed a little girl. Just knowing he
hurt her was agony enough. His intention was to take
(33:40):
her out of the home, and he failed miserably at that.
He left her inside the home.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
He took off. We had a.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Letter, the ransom note, which is incredibly Gary one hundred percent.
If you knew Gary like I knew Gary, it's all
movie references and song lyrics, and it's long and it's rambling.
I could show you a suitcase full of letters just
like this.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
It's exactly his style.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Keep in mind, he was drinking heavily.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, you're describing a disorganize a fender. So was
he under the influence at the time of its crime.
It was disorganized, you know, or under the influence.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Yes, And he's admitted to me.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
He's admitted to me like he was under the influence
at the time. He said he was under the bridge alcoholic.
He was a good pass out under the bridge, drunk, alcoholic,
and he had access to a Mexican restaurant that he
would do the graveyard shift. At this Mexican restaurant, he
(34:47):
had access to the seller where they had all the alcohol.
He would tell me stories how he would drink until
he passed out, wake up in the cellar, and go
why am I in the cellar? And then another interesting tidbit.
There was a church in the back of John Benet's house,
Thomas Aquina Church, And now I was able to get
(35:10):
information to find out Gary actually had a key to
this church. He had run off copies of the keys,
and as long as he knew that, as long as
he was out of there by ten am, he would
never get caught there.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Why does he have a key to the church? Was
he a janitor or something?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Well?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
No, he actually was doing murals in the church, but
I don't think other people realized he had a key.
He told me he went to the lumberyard and ran
off copies he had access to the key. There was
a priest in training that was in that little house
right next to the church that the church owed, and
(35:49):
this priest in training saw that Gary was an amazing
artist and said, hey, why don't you do some murals
inside the cottage, and so Gary went to work and
did three beautiful murals in the cap and you know,
using paint brushes. By the way, if you want to
look at all the evidence, we go back to high
school when you would make collages of little girls with
(36:12):
darts in their butt and ropes tight around them. All
this evidence, the totality of the evidence, everything points to Gary.
So it's baffling to me when I would go on
a TV show or something and I literally was thinking
in my head, okay, the next day.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Gary would be arrested.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Well, this never happened because the reality is everybody was
set in their ways as to all the parents did it?
Or the nine year old kid?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
How could a nine.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Year old kid do something like this, I mean it's
just impossible. But people had already got this locked in
their head. And as a psychologist, I mean you would
know you can't. Once somebody's locked into a belief, it's
very difficult to get them to look at anything else.
I'm sure I've actually bred some of this and psychology books, yeah,
(37:01):
there is.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
That's difficult. So going back to the investigation piece, curious
about again, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence here. How
the detectives looked at this stuff and it has he
been interviewed recently? In other words, he said, there's new
investigators from the older police department.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, there's new investigators as far as I know to
this point. Did they definitely have not interviewed Gary as
of recently. They did interview they. Gary had alibis from
two guys that were actually alcoholics, fellow alcoholics that he
would party with. Those were his alibis to the Boulder
(37:39):
police back in the day, back in ninety six ninety seven,
we had Alex Hunter who was so concerned about Gary
that he drove out to my house picked up hundreds
of letters of evidence because I had all this stuff
pre ninety six. And it's important when you look at
the ransom note to realize it was written in ninety six.
(38:00):
So to look at Gary's handwriting from twenty sixteen, which
was all uppercase, it's baffling to somebody a layman like me.
And it took Jason Jensen to notice that there was
an upper case in lowercase and the ransom note, and
so I was able to find some pre ninety six
handwriting and bingo, it was a perfect match to the
(38:23):
ransom note, startling match. Like I said, there is a
lot of details to this case. I will bind my
answering it correctly for you. If their handwriting expert, could
you compare those that sample or the example where you
have to the ransom note. They should be able to
or write with some confidence a conclusion about whether or
not it's a matron on.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
Has that been done?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Here's the thing with the bold repd It's like we're
playing poker. These guys are ready to go to court.
These are court guys. They're thinking court now. They're so
they're hooked into this DNA philosophy. They're saying that there's
a new technology that's coming out in a year or
so that's going to solve all these problems and that
(39:06):
they'll be able to figure out the DNA. However, Jason
and I have got over this case with a fine
tooth comb. We feel that the DNA that they would
find would likely be the coroner who was pulling up
her underwear. It most likely could have been a police
officer that coughed near her body. It could have been
something as simple as that these are people that are
(39:29):
definitely not I have not been arrested for felonies. They're
not going to be in the codis. I tend to
believe ten percent. Hey, you know what, there might be
some DNA coming down the pike. Jason, on the other hand,
he's down to zero. He says, I'll let him speak
for himself. But Jason says that the DNA has been
compromised and that this is not a DNA case, and
(39:53):
to look at the totality of the evidence and rather
look at direct evidence such as the phone call I received,
which has been documented all the way from Alex Hunter
ending my lead to mister Ramsey in ninety seven, which
that's documented. And then you've got the Netflix special that
was on recently and even they said that Gary had
(40:16):
called me. So all this has been cooperated and here
we are in twenty twenty five. Oh, it's a shock
that nothing's been done with this case for so long.
It really is a.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Shock, Jason. Do you think they're just saying, oh, we're
waiting for better technology for DNA analysis as a way
to just.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
Be like, keep in mind they're consulting with the prosecutors
obviously on this as well, like because they're taking this evidence,
or you know, they got this case, and they're talking
to the district attorney the local DA there about do
we have enough yet to charge?
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Right?
Speaker 6 (40:54):
And so again I don't know what's going on in
terms of their discussions, but this happens frequently where you
have a case that you work a homicide case and
you have circumstantial evidence you have in this case, degraded DNA,
and you don't have a confirmation, right, we don't have
a match. So you may have a DA that saying yeah,
maybe there's this is a potential suspect, but we just
(41:16):
don't have enough. You don't have enough to get a
conviction beyond reasonable doubt because remember that burden is much higher.
So the das were looking at things, you know, quite
differently than even you know investigators. They understand the burdens
as well. But I'm just wondering if you know, Jason
has any insights on that.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Where they're at it takes careful understanding of where the
un one profile is located on each piece of evidence
that they've tested. Starting with what we do know is
there was block duct tape that was pulled off of
John Bennese mouth. On that block duct tape, there was
(41:54):
two profiles, two individual profiles and they matched John Ramsey
and Fleet wiped. Both of them handled the duct tape
as it was ripped from her mouth and afterwards because
Linda Art sent them down to go look throughout the
house again in hopes to find John Bennet, and they did,
(42:16):
and when John found her, she was supplying on the
floor in the cellar. So you know, naturally, your instinct
as a pair is I'm going to save my daughter.
I'm going to save my child. So he ripped off
the duct tape. He breathed some relief, and he picked
her up and ran her up the stairs, yell, and
(42:36):
I found her so naturally, though when Linda Art saw her,
she realized that she had already deceased. But meanwhile, there
was no un one profile on that duct tape.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
This was a.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Premeditated crime if he had the wherewithal to come in
with duct tape, because what investigators learned is that piece
of duct tape was not found. There was not a
roll of duct tape found anywhere in the house, so
that was introduced into the crime scene by the perpetrator.
Anyone that handles duct tape knows it's highly sticky, So
(43:16):
if you handle it with your bare skin. It's gonna
not only leave epithelial skin cells on the duct tape,
it usually leads really good ridges of your print outline there,
so you can actually see your fingerprint in duct tape.
That's how sticky you know at this how much adhesion
(43:36):
is on the backside of duct tape. So we got
two profiles, none of them is you in one that
tells me in my crime scene reconstruction experience is that
the perpetrator had gloves on. He was not going to
leave his DNA. Was it gonna do something so stupid
is to leave his fingerprints on duct tape because in
(43:58):
nineteen ninety six, you know, I think in DNA, you're
thinking fingerprints. So he's got gloves on, you don't have to,
you know, take him off and on, off and on
to preserve the transfer fingerprints, like prime steam technicians worry
about nowadays. Now they have to actually have fresh buzz
for every piece of evidence that they handle or they
(44:19):
run the risk of transferring DNA from this article to
this article. And so what we have here and in
my opinion, is we have YU and one on the paintbrush.
We have you and one on the outer edges of
her long joms. There's one sample taken on the on
the left waistband, and two one being on the inside
(44:41):
one beyond the outside of her right waistband. Then you
had the YU and one mixed with the blood stain
at the center of the crutch of the underwear. We
also have U and one that was found underneath her
fingernails and on the core. And we know that she
was at her neck, So did she get the un
(45:03):
one from the cord? Was she handling touching something else
in the process. I believe where all that DNA source
comes from is from the paintbrush. If you look at
the paintbrush, it's a used paintbrush, so it's not a
forensically sterile piece, you know, paintbrush where it has no
(45:23):
DNA on it. But if he breaks the paintbrush and
now has the gloves contaminated with the UL one profile,
and we know that the UL one profile was found
on the paintbrush, so I believe it's not transferred from
the perpetrator to the paintbrush, but from the paintbrush to
the perpetrator. Then he touches the waist pan and he
(45:45):
uses the paintbrush to assault jumpin at and that's the
source of the blood. What we call a swite in
blood stained analysis. It was transferred. Blood was transferred from
the from the paint brush onto the underpants mixed with
the un one. So that's the source of that. And
(46:06):
why the blood came from that is because they found
microscopic pieces of the paintbrush vaginally, so that was used
to assault her with and so there's a swipe and
then now he's got soiled hands and pulls the breeches
back up and things of that nature. That's the source
of the DNA. I believe that one profile traces back,
(46:32):
not necessary to an individual ultimately through the chain of
the history of the paintbrush. But the U one doesn't
tie to the suspect in the crime scene. It ties
back to a piece of evidence.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
In the crime scene, the paintbrush.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
So either the paintbrush is introduced from the hum originally
someone else had touched it, or you on one was
brought in with the paintbrush from another source. And if
Gary was at the caretaker's cottage at the church only
thirteen doors down and in the crime scene was an
(47:07):
unknown rope that was introduced and left in the spare bedroom.
There was the cord that was not found to originate
anywhere in the home. The paint brush was alleged to
be part of Patsy's paint brush kit. Because there was
a paintbrush kit in the basement doesn't necessarily mean that
they're one and the same. But we know Gary was
(47:28):
painting at the cottage at the church just thirteen doors down.
How do we know he didn't bring in the paint
brush in his backpack along with the rope and the
cord and the duct tape. And we know the taser
that was used the stunt gun. No one has a
stunt gun, but we know that during Gary's two thousand arrests,
(47:48):
he was found in possession of a stun gun. So
you have all this evidence that ties to a type
of perpetrator equipped with certain piece of equipment. All these
things are tied to that individual, who may or may
not be unknown.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
But we know.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Based on the suspicious nature of the phone call the
night of the murder. We know from subsequent confessions, including
admitting that it was an accident. You have to believe me,
I didn't mean to do this. I dropped her and
she died in my arms. All of that says Gary, Gary, Gary,
over and over again. And it's like, if Gary was
(48:25):
given a get out of jail free card, tell us everything,
you know, maybe he'd say, well, where the paintburst came
from and things like that. But as long as he's
on the radar and subject to potential arrest or being
vilified for the rest of pciety, he's not likely to
say anything. But that's what I believe. I believe that
the paintbrush and these things like the rope and whatnot
(48:49):
comes from the church down the street.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
And I wanted to mention that the autopsy I believe
showed that John Benet Ramsey had taste remarks something I
feel like people leave out. It's very critical that Gary
Olive at the time carried a taser, which is very specific.
Now i'd want to know if he also carried gloves
(49:12):
in his backpack. And I don't know if you've ever
had the opportunity, Michael to ask him about ask him
directly if he wore gloves.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Oh yeah, I asked him.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
I said, Hey, how do you think there was not
some more DNA left at the crime scene? And he
said he looked up at me, and he said one word,
he said, gloves.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
I'll also keep in mind it was cold, it was winter,
and you normally would wear gloves to keep your hands warm.
And one other little point of view is that of
statue of limitations on and manslaughter is a three year
statue limitations. So we may have some problems with the
justice here, but at least we know the truth.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
I know when you just joined us before we started
this episode. Guess who called Gary on the phone calling Michael.
Michael didn't take the call. And I know you know
you've been to Colorado to visit him and talk to him. Actually,
we're going to be in Colorado for Crime con this September,
(50:14):
at least I know Jason Jensen and I are. And
you know, there's always an opportunity to have a conversation
directly with him, and I'm not sure if you'd be
willing to do that or I know you're very familiar
with him and what motivates him. So tell me about
currently just your conversations, where you're at now with him
(50:38):
and your correspondence. Are you're still receiving You're still receiving
letters and phone calls from him.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Right, there's a weird thing about me that I'd look
for the good in anybody, and this, I know it
sounds crazy, but with Gary, if I figure, if he
keeps busy doing art and drawing and he goes to
these therapy classes he's going to he's aware that he
has these issues, it's gonna help. I can't imagine what
(51:05):
it's like to have these kind of fantasies in your head. Conversely,
you know, I am getting letters and I'm getting some
amazing art from him. It just gets better and better.
He's steered away from some of the beheading stuff and
he's doing more landscapes with a giant spatula with an
egg in the middle of a desert landscape. Just then,
(51:27):
that's the kind of stuff that we want to see
from Gary. He doesn't really want to go on a
TV show. He doesn't want to talk to In fact,
and when he was in prison, he had ten requests
from media to talk with him. He turned them all down.
The only one he did take wasn't media. It was
Dog the Bounty Hunter. So he actually met with the
(51:48):
owner of the Dog the Bounty Hunter. It's an interesting story.
I would say why not why not do an interview?
They know? I mean, why not? I could see if
I could push that through for you. I can tell
you just my gut feeling is he wouldn't want anything
to do with that. He did mention that he was
worried about his reputation, and I'm like, dude, you've already been.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Outed for twenty seven years.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
What he doesn't understand is this is I hate to say,
infamous quality kind of situation. But rather than being vilified,
if he came clean and brought justice and closure for everybody,
it actually is a moment for somebody who has done
bad deeds who's reformed, to be almost honored as, hey,
(52:43):
you know you've done the right thing. Everybody can change
their life, and you know, being a Christian society, we
believe in forgiveness. So if he wanted to come clean
and come forward, he'd likely do some time in prison again.
But it's not anything he's not into. But it gets
it over with, comes clean, gets a new slight in life,
(53:05):
and people would look at him as a model criminal
who's reformed and had a chance to also become infamous
in the process.
Speaker 6 (53:19):
Of course, that depends on again, you said doing some
time in prison, like if he did stay, admit, or
come clean, essentially, if they charged murder versus manslaughter, which
might well commented on the statute limitations for manslaughter Colorado.
I don't know there's statute of limitations, but I would
argue that first degree or second degree murder, which it
(53:39):
requires intent to kill, there are no statute limitations on that.
So it would depend on what the DA decided to
do in terms of charging, you know, as far as
like what that prison sentence might look like. If he
ever did, you know, come clean, and they have that
evidence that corroborated, his statement alone may not believe it
or not be enough, or his confession alone may not
necessarily be enough, just from a preceptorial standpoint, because wherever
(54:02):
they still have to prove all those elements beyond reasonable doubts.
So that's an interesting thing to think about. Yeah, it's
interesting because they've had the confessional letter since twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, I received twelve letters confessing to it. But
that's just not enough to convict somebody. Correct, He theoretically
could go on your show say he did it, and
(54:25):
to explain his regrets and his grief and the torture
he's been going through and putting on himself and his
own ad and you know, and not be convicted after
twenty eight years. I can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow,
but it seems like it's been an awfully long time.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Well, Jason Jensen and I are we're going to be
in Colorado for Crime com. We're trying to get Craig
to go with us.
Speaker 6 (54:51):
Sounds fun, is it in Denvor?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yes, you need to go.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
We're going to be there and maybe Jerial Leva can
join us for dinner have a discussion.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
But thank you so.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Much Michael Bell for having a discussion with us today.
I'm sure you didn't imagine your life that this is
what you'd be affiliated with, or you know this would
be going on this long, but here you are. I
appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
It would have been great to be recognized for my
career and all the good stuff that I did in
my career instead of when you google my name and
this comes up. Yeah, you never expect that to happen.
It's definitely a chalk Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
And thank you Jason Jensen and Craig Letter.
Speaker 5 (55:34):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
We will definitely do more episodes together. So I appreciate
all your time today, so thank you. Thank you for
listening to Killer Psychologist. To watch full video episodes or
if you want to interact with me, you can find
a Killer Psychologist on YouTube. You can also get notified
(55:58):
of new episodes by signing up my stand store Now.
If you want to work with me, you can book
a console. My website is psychologydoctor dot com. That's Psychology
d R dot com
Welcome to Killer Psychologist. I'm Dana Anderson, a forensic psychologist and.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Your host of the show.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Killer Psychologist is for true crime fanatics and anyone intrigued
with the dark side of psychology. Welcome to the Killer Psychologist.
Today we're going to discuss the John Benet Ramsey case.
John Beney was found dead in her home on December
(00:30):
twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six, and today I have with
me here Michael Vail, Craig Weder, and Jason Jensen to
discuss this case. And I want to hear from you,
Michael first.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
About your history with this case.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
For people that don't know you, you are very familiar
with Gary Oliva, who is alleged you have accidentally killed
John Benay. And I want to go back to December
twenty six, nineteen ninety six. This has now been twenty
eight years and people are still so obsessed with this
(01:16):
case and frustrated because a lot of people feel like
it hasn't been solved. And I would love to hear
your opinion.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Is this case solvable? Do we have the right guy?
Speaker 1 (01:28):
But going back twenty eight years, you gow a phone
call like the following day of this murder from Gary Oliba,
and I want to hear from you about that phone
call and what did he say to you?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, you know, it's it's quite a story. We got
twenty eight years. It's a journey for justice. And what
happened was on December twenty six, nineteen ninety six. This
is one of the happiest times in my life. I
had just married my high school sweetheart, I had custody
(02:06):
of my twelve year old son, and life was great.
I was purchasing my first house on Thousand Oaks, very
exciting time in my life. My family had just gone
to sleep, and then I get the phone call and
it's just before midnight on December twenty sixth, nineteen ninety six,
and I had new instantly the voice. I hadn't heard
(02:28):
his voice in years, but I knew it was Gary.
And Gary sobbing into the phone like I never heard
anybody to this day, never heard anybody sobbing like this.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
And he's like, oh heard, oh little girl, like he
couldn't even get.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The words out, and I was like, whoa, this is real,
this is scary.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
I went from the Christmas.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Good vibes to that phone call, just absolutely shocking. Immediately,
I'm like.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Where are you what?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
That's your address? What's your phone number? And you know,
he gave me some information. I won't get into the
details right this minute, but I'll tell you something. When
he realized that I was trying to get his information
so I could turn him in, he just hung up
on me, and I was like in shock. I'm like,
oh my god. Gary called me. He said he was
(03:22):
in Bolder. You know, keep in mind, Gary been mailing
me stuff. We used to use the US mail in
the nineties, in the eighties and nineties after high school.
You know, just I give you some information. I went
to high school with Gary was a classmate of mine.
In a very small high school. Everybody knew everybody. So
after high school I kept in touch with people because
I took a TV radio communication class and I accessed
(03:45):
to a radio station at the college and I would
make funny cassette tapes and stuff, and I would send
it to my high school friends. Gary was one of
those that got the cassettes.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
He loved it.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
He mailed me back a cassette. This went on for years,
off and on, and then I get the phone call
in ninety six. Gary had been mailing me the stuff
with a postmark from Grant's Pass, Oregon. So when he
told me he was in Bolder, it was a real
eye opener because I did note that some of our
mutual friends from high school had gone to the University
(04:18):
of Boulder, so I knew it was in Bolder. I
knew he had heard a little girl, and that was
very obvious to me. So the next morning, and I
couldn't get information to call the police, or I would
have called the police. But the next morning, here I am.
You know, Gary's biggest mistake was calling a guy who
was a publicist because I would get the newspapers on
(04:38):
my front porch every morning. Oh, I head out there
to get the newspaper. Believe me, this is before social
media and all this. It was all about the newspaper
and TV news. So I go get the newspaper and
I'm reading the front page. Okay, I flip it over.
It's still the front page, and it says girls six
found slain in Boulder, Colorado.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
Now keep them.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
There was no name. It didn't say John Benet Ramsey
or anything like that. All I saw was girls six
slain and Boulger and I'm like, holy crap, Gary killed
a little girl. Immediately, I called the phone number at
the bottom of the article. I reported it to the police,
and then I told everybody, told my wife, I told everybody.
(05:23):
I said, hey, sit back and watch. Gary's going to
get arrested any day, now, you know, he did something terrible.
And a week went by, and another week went by. Well,
it seemed what seemed like about three months before I'm like,
why didn't Gary get arrested for this? So I called
the police a second time. By this time, there been
(05:43):
so many crazy people calling the crazy people line. I
called the John Bunny crazy person line. So the police
officer answered the phone and I go, hey, I've got
a tip. I've got important tip about John Bney. He's like,
hold on, I'll put you through to the crazy person line.
We know it basically, and I get put through to
the answering machine. Leave your tip here. I left my
tip on that answering machine. I'm sure now looking back retrospect,
(06:07):
it was buried with all these other leads. Meanwhile, the
shocking part was seeing on the grocery store shelves. This
was completely shocking to me to think that the parents
would be accused of something so horrible, to lose your
daughter in such a horrific way and then to be
blamed for it. I don't think there's a worse hell
(06:29):
on earth. And my heart just went out to these
people right from the get go. So that's around ninety
six here. Then we get into two thousand and two.
That would be the next interaction I had with a
homicide detectives with the DA Alex Hunter of Ulder County,
And I'll let you talk, but it's nice to be
(06:51):
able to say the whole paragraph and get it out.
So that's ninety six to two thousand and two.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
No, thank you so much, Jensen. How do you think
the media played a role in this early on by
talking about this case and you know, making allegations that
the parents were suspects or the brother who was nine years.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Old at that time.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
How do you think that has continues to still impact
the case and people's perception about who they believe is
responsible for death.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
Well, I mean, it doesn't really leave much to speculate here.
A Typically, law enforcement, especially use legacy media for many,
many years. They turned to journalists, they turned to news
stations and things like that to get the story out
and still to this day, media relies on that relationship
(07:49):
with law enforcement, so they take their information from law enforcement.
So even in this case where law enforcement got it wrong,
but they pitched it out there repeatedly that it was
a family member, that was a family member, that was
a family member. So that's all that we as a
consuming audience in the public have to rely on, is
(08:12):
what's been fed from law enforcement through the media to
us the reader or somebody watching it on the news.
So even though a credible tip comes through and should
have been treated more carefully, as we learn now you
know twenty eight years later that this in my opinion,
(08:33):
is the one responsible.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
For her death.
Speaker 5 (08:36):
We still have to this day people that believe the
false story, the false narrative that it was a family member,
and that Patsy Ramsey was the author of the ransom
note left behind. So it's no surprise to me. But
it's hard to unring a bell, Ain't that right?
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Craig and I want to hear from Craig what or
from a law enforcement perspective because he has you know,
he's a retired law enforcement officer. Let's think about the
motivation from law enforcement giving a statement to the press.
You kind of want to give the community the illusion
(09:17):
that they're safe or that they've got this under control,
Like we isolated the perpetrator instead of making the society
fear that it's the unknown person who's still out there,
like create panic and distrust in the police.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Tell me about that.
Speaker 6 (09:32):
Yeah, sometimes that is the strategy that law enforcement uses.
Like Jason said, I've seen this happen in these investigations
where who they think is responsible and based on some
facts or again sometimes it's speculation. It's kind of like hypotheses,
you know, like they have educated guesses about who may
be responsible, and then they get locked in on that
(09:53):
narrative and they sort of ignore other possibilities. We all
know it's cognitivis is that we you know that us
sort of have we get locked in on something right
a specific like we think that this family member is
responsible because you know, oftentimes we know that you murders
that are happening, we generally turn to family members, usually
(10:13):
at the spouse or a partner or something that is
the first to be looked at in any kind of
homicide case. And likewise, when you have a child that's
been murdered. They're going to be looking at the family.
They look at everybody, obviously, but they do look at
the family, and they look at any of those connections.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
You know, it's so interesting what you said about the
parents are the first to be looked at in this case.
Lou Smith told me they were the first to be
looked at. And not only did he look at them
with a fine tooth comb, he had a forensic expert
go through their computers and he told me flat out
that there was no excuse the word porn. There was
(10:49):
no porn on their computers to speak of. There was
no nothing that would indicate something of this crime's nature.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That was the first thing he did was look at
the parents, and he immediately discovered that they were the
nicest parents. They were the best parents. We all should
hope that we had parents as good as the Ramseys
worked to their kids. Patsy Ramsey was inspiring her daughter.
Her daughter wanted to.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Be a musician.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Her daughter wanted to be a singer. Her daughter enjoyed performing,
and she encouraged it. And that's the kind of thing
you want with your parents.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Getting back to the parents, and there seemed to be
this presumption. A lot of people just assumed there was
some in something insidious between the parents, like sexual abuse,
so she wet the bed. And sometimes these things aren't
true or found it at all, they're not, but it
gets out in the media and then it's repeated through
(11:51):
the years, through the decades.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Do people hold these beliefs to be true?
Speaker 1 (11:56):
And then people look for this information and like confirmation bias,
looking for information to support.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
That belief system.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
To this date, people who believe it's the brother who
is nine at the time, or still believe it's Patsy
and have all this information, but when in fact, actually
the information's not accurate. And so we can talk about
some people before Gary Oliva and have made some false confessions.
(12:27):
Perhaps that's why it's been difficult for people to trust
this statement from Gary. However, it's not a new statement.
It goes all the way back to the date of
her death, the twenty.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Sixth of December nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 6 (12:48):
One thing I want to ask Michael is that his
story's been the same all along, right, like all throughout
it hasn't changed.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Well, no, it sure hasn't. In fact, when you think
about the scariest part of this is is that I
received that phone call before it was in the newspaper.
I did some check up on this around twenty sixteen.
I was able to get the actual newspaper from the
twenty seventh from the La Times, and there was article
I saw didn't have any mention to John Benney in it.
(13:19):
It just said a girl six was slain in Boulder.
That's all I needed to know to call the police
the next morning when I saw the newspaper. But I
also did follow up with Denver. None of the newspaper's
course had reported it until the morning of the twenty seventh.
Gary has tried to be evasive from time to time
over the years, but you know the fact is we
(13:39):
come back right back around and he's admitted. He doesn't
deny it to me, he admits it to me. He
wants to get the message of Bobo out to the world,
which is another unique aspect of this. He wants to
us to be ambassadors for Bobo. If he has a
code name when he's in prison and stuff. He can't
(14:01):
say John Beney on the phone to me. So he's
come up with these names, and one of them is bobo,
so he can say bobo on the phone all day
long and the game members sitting next to Mark going
to know that he's talking about John Benet because he
would surely get his He would get beat up if
he had said this something like that. So it's amazing
(14:24):
to think that Lou Smidt I was in contact with
him until he passed in twenty ten. He had told
me the DNA was compromised at the crime scene and
that the police were hyper focused on the parents. And
then after he passed another gentleman by the name of
Olie Gray on the side detective with a fantastic track record,
(14:44):
he picked up the reins. He was there till twenty sixteen.
In twenty sixteen, I realized when after Ali Gray had passed,
that I felt like I was only one actually who
knew the details of this case.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
Well.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Within month, Gary was arrested for something on his phone
that was so bad he got a ten year sentence.
So I'll let you pick it up from here.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Yeah, so my understanding, he's a registered sex offender in
Colorado and he violated the terms and conditions of his
whether it was parle or probation, so probably had some
child pornography, I'm guessing, and ten years that's a long sentence.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
It was some serious it was a little bit beyond
child pornography.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
What was on his phone. It was.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Something that I have difficulty getting my tongue to say so,
but just imagine what could be the worst thing, right,
That's what he had on his phone. This is a
weird time to talk about the positive sides to Gary,
but I'll tell you something. This is a guy who
could have been a phenomenal artist, just an amazing artist
(15:56):
to talent. He had this talent back in high school.
And I've got a package here with tons of his
artwork that he's been mailing me, and he just gets
better and better at it. It's interesting that this little girl,
John Bennet is so powerful that years later, twenty eight
years later, it's really actually fantastic thing that people still
(16:19):
care and that people are still carrying the torch for
this little girl.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
So yeah, that's where we're at.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
The twenty sixteen arrest, he went to prison. I was asked,
can you find out from Gary the details of what
happened with the John Bennet? And I'm like, what right
to Gary? I don't think I could do that. Well,
I thought about it for about two weeks, and I go,
you know what, I've got a lot of questions about this.
(16:47):
I've got a ton of questions about this case, and
only Gary can answer it.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
So I started.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
I wrote Gary a letter in prison, not thinking he
would reply or anything. Well, boom, all of a sudden,
I'm getting a lot letter back. So I mail him
another letter, email, another letter back. I'd ask him a
few more questions. We went back and forth like this.
It was very difficult to communicate letter by letter and
have to wait a week or two for the next
one to show up. So I said, Gary, why don't
(17:14):
we start talking.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
On the phone.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Well that's when the telephone interview started, the prison interview,
phone calls, and I was getting all kinds of details
about the case from Gary's own mouth.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
It seemed like that timeline where he's incarcerated, and these
telephone calls are being recorded and this information is presented,
this might be a good time to, you know, file charges.
Like I'm just curious, and maybe Craig can weigh in,
(17:48):
as he's also an attorney. Why don't we think charges
have ever been filed?
Speaker 6 (17:55):
This is the sort of. The question I have again
for Michael too, is that I obviously the police know
about Gary, right, I mean that you have reported this
can essentially this confession that he gave. But have they
actually interviewed Gary at all with regard to this case
(18:16):
or do you know?
Speaker 3 (18:18):
I do know, I am aware that they have in
the past. Now, keep in mind there's a whole new
batch of cold case team members now. So if you
hear me talk about the Keystone cops, I'm talking about
ninety six, and we're talking about police that didn't steal
the crime scene. They came in there and destroyed evidence,
(18:39):
They compromised the DNA on the crime scene. It was
just a complete mess. But now you've got these experienced,
genius hero police at the Boulder PD Cold Case Team.
We've got a new sergeant you know, who's doing an
amazing job. And I'm really holding out hope. However, and
Jason confirm this. They really are stuck in this DNA mentality.
(19:05):
Even though some people will say, oh, Louse Smith said
DNA will solve this case. Of course, DNA would solve
this case. But the DNA has been compromised.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Now.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
Lou Smith told me personally that the DNA was compromised
at the crime scene. But then again he told other
people that the DNA will solve this, and both of
those statements are true.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Jason Jensen is just ready to tell us he's the
DNA mastermind. In fact, Jason left me a six minute
audio message about why this case isn't a DNA case,
and I listened to it this morning before we got on.
But obviously I want to hear from Jason Jensen because
so many people are just caught in this thinking, look,
(19:52):
let's just be honest, average person doesn't really understand DNA
and forensic science and then applying it to the case.
So I think it's great time for Jason to sort
of educate us on like why or why not this
case isn't going to be solved through DNA. So people
are like thinking that it's just going to be this
magic DNA check he was there at the scene and
(20:12):
then we go arrest him and it's not quite like that.
So Jason, I know you have a lot to say
about this, Like.
Speaker 6 (20:19):
I'll chime in on why maybe maybe for all charters
I'm involved. Yet, you know, in the absence of DNA,
what does that mean, is circumstantial? Is there direct evidence
all of that stuff. So you know, I'll time in
on that, but I'm curious to hear what Jason has
to say about the DNA issue.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Here just for understanding, just real quick, I'm just going
to give a little background about me. Yeah, I'm a
private investigator, and you know, oftentimes there's a stigma that,
you know, what we're good at is chasing cheaters down
and things like that. But there's different kinds of private investigators,
different kinds of investigations that private investigators do. One of
(20:56):
the things that I'm unique in is that not only
do I have a master's degree in criminal justice, but
I have also done training with law enforcement for a
crime scene reconstruction as well as blood pattern analysis. And
in twenty seventeen, me and an attorney and a retired
(21:16):
journalist formed the Cold Case Coalition. One of the things
that we established through the Cold Case Coalition was Inner
Mountain Forensics, a nonprofit DNA lab, so I had access
to some of the brightest minds in DNA analysis as
(21:36):
well as genetic genealogy. So I've learned a lot in
my capacity as a co founder of that and one
of the things that I've really come to understand is
DNA isn't always suspect DNA, wharying some cases like the
Golden State Killer, where Joseph Dangelo's DNA positively matched semen
(22:03):
left at the crime scene, which led to his arrested
and ultimate conviction. For many of the cases, it doesn't
always mean that DNA is going to lead to a suspect. Here,
in this particular case of John Benna, they've identified an
unknown profile and they call it UM one in all
(22:24):
the reports. UN one stands for unknown Male Profile Number one.
They don't have a UM two, they don't have a
UM three. And so any time that somebody comes up
as a suspect and they collect a DNA sample from
the individual, they compare with the UN one to see
(22:45):
if it leads to a match. Now, clearly, if there
was a match, that would be suspect DNA. But if
there isn't a match, it doesn't mean that they're not guilty.
It doesn't mean that they're not you know, what if
there was an accomplice, whether there was a partner, What
if the DNA that they've analyzed goes to an investigator
(23:07):
or a crime scene technician or a lab personnel. It
doesn't always mean that DNA leads to a suspect. And
in this particular case, they're not using nineteen ninety six
style DNA, where all that they really could test in
that era was large quantities of either semen, saliva or blood.
(23:36):
That's not what they're analyzing here. What they're analyzing here
is touch DNA. Touch DNA didn't become a thing in
tell around two thousand and five, two thousand and six,
two thousand and seven, and it really has become a staple,
you know, in technology advances nowadays, so they'll immediately go
to touch DNA analysis, just like in the Brian Coberger case,
(24:00):
or they took a DNA sample off the knife sheath,
but because it's fresh, there's no risk of degradation, there's
no risk of contamination. We're talking in this particular case,
the touch DNA really didn't become an issue until the
mid two thousands, and that's the time frame that they
(24:21):
did a second round of DNA analysis. In John Viney's case,
what they first did was in nineteen ninety seven, they
did a stain a bloodstains sample testing from the crotch
of the underwear. They cut it out and they took
half of the sample and tested it through the Colorado
(24:42):
State Crime Lab. From that, they got a major profile
that they attribute from the blood to beat John Viney's.
Then they got a minor profile of nine of the
necessary alleles of a mail and that's what they identified
as unknown mail. Then when there was a change of
the guard with the DA's office and Mary Lacey became
(25:06):
the DA for Boulder County, they went ahead and authorized
another round of testing. This time they submitted it to
body laboratories or body technologies and from that they got
the same results. And at that time there was no
genetic genealogy or anything like that. All they did is
(25:28):
recreate the steps that were done previously on just more
items and just confirmed through CODIS style DNA, so STR,
which is different and they can't use SDR results with
genetic genealogy. That's a misunderstanding of there are two different systems,
(25:50):
two different process and they require a lot more of
the genome to test in the genealogy sites, so not STR.
They're required to have SMPS. Through SMPS they can do
genetic genealogy. The reason why they had that ability in
(26:11):
the Golden State killer case, even though some of the
crimes went back to sixty eight. Is because SEMEN is
a much larger sample with more competent you know, mel
style DNA, because it's like a deposit, not just epithelial
where you just touch and leave just a minute little.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Particle, you know, microscopic level. So it's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 5 (26:37):
And because of that nature, they don't have the technology
to do genetic genealogy with touch DNA of a decor
dated nature that was touched DNA from twenty eight years ago.
It's just not going to happen. And that's when they
did the third round of testing through Boulder just in
twenty twenty four. Their reaction now is we don't have
(27:01):
the technology, and that's what they inform the Ramses during
their visit last month. So here we are. You're not
going to prove the case through DNA no matter what.
You've got to have an exact match of that person
and if it's not suspect DNA but a third party
is not going to lead to any conviction. And that
(27:22):
brings us back in full circle here where you got
to use other evidence. And you know we've covered this
between US three without Michael in the past. The ransom
note is clear evidence. You know, that leads to a
suspect if you can identify the handwriting, and that's where
we're at. We believe that the handwriting match is Gara Leiva.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Handwriting analysis is interesting and people can fixate on that analysis,
and I know you experts have covered this, but it's
also the content of that letter, and there's some key
things that stood out, like beheading and just some unusual
(28:07):
word phrasing that would be very inconsistent with the parents
in this case. For example, it's bizarrely written, and there's
themes in there that just beheading. For example, Michael, you
describe some of the artwork from Gary that involves beheading
of children.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Oh, yeah, definitely from the prison letters that I was getting. Yeah,
that was a current theme. That was a definite theme.
Putting them on a spit in where you turned the
handle and you put them over flames what he calls
squat and pop or something the sound of the cooking,
(28:49):
and he would draw a dumbell with the head off,
or different cartoon characters or in the case of Boop
or some of these other characters. Also lots of images
of John Bennet. What shocking is how amazing this guy
(29:10):
can be imprisoned for two years and still draw a
perfect image of John Bennet that looks like a photograph.
This is a guy who was racked with remorse, griddled
with grief like you've never seen. He's not happy that
this happened. Here's my take on this. This is a
(29:31):
fellow who's an alcoholic with a history of children abuse,
and a serious alcoholic at the time in ninety six.
He went too far. It was an accident because he
didn't mean to kill her. And this is a shock.
It was a shock to me to realize, so I
can imagine it's a shock for your audience to fear
(29:53):
this that this wasn't actually meant to kill her. It
was part of some sort of acting out, some sort
of a fantasy that he had. So I think Jason
could expound on this a little bit more.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
What I learned in my research is I dug into
Gary's nineteen ninety victim and learned who she was and
obtained old photographs of her from back in that time frame,
and she has a striking resemblance of jumpin a which
(30:33):
I found to be quite intriguing overall, because I'm sure
you guys would would agree that pedophiles have a type,
and so most of their victims are going to either
fit that same age criteria or they're going to look
the same.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:51):
Even in my experience working on Ted Bundy's case, all
of his victims were of the same type. They all
had a resemblance of Diane Edwards, his girlfriend during college
that dumped them then. And it seems strange that all
these serial killers always seem to have someone that they blame,
(31:12):
a love interest that rejected them, and then they go
on some killing spree of everyone that looks or reminds
them of that person. But going back to type and
going back to Gary, I believe that he saw Jambinet
and it reminded him of his nineteen ninety victim, and
so he was living out that fantasy of his relationship
(31:35):
with that young lady, and he was trying to recreate
that with John Benet. But in order to do that,
he had to remove her from the Hume well, and
he felled miserably to the degree that all the things
he tried to do to get her out, tried stuffing
her in a suitcase, tried tying a cord on her,
(31:56):
wrists in her neck to pull her out the basement window,
which we know ended up strangling her. So all of
these different things that he tried to do to get
her from the home. Rather than just alter his plan,
he was fixated on executing just the plan as he
predicted he would accomplish. He premeditated climbing through the window
(32:19):
and then going out the window. He didn't alter his
process or his thoughts like, well, this isn't working. Maybe
I should just pick her up and whisk her out
of a door. But you know, she ends up withering
away in the basement and he makes his way out
the window and tries to avoid detection.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
So I want to bring it back to Michael Vell
because I want to make sure I understand that Gary left.
And are we thinking that he didn't know she had died,
like he abandoned the scene and left.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Well, it always baffled me. Why when that first phone
call ninety six, you know, on December twenty sixth ninety six,
why did he say he hurt a little girl when
the next morning the newspaper said she was slain. So
years later I have now come to the conclusion after
interviewing Gary from the horse's mouth himself. This fellow was
(33:20):
not aware that she was she was dead at the time.
It all makes sense. I heard a little girl. He
didn't say he killed a little girl. Just knowing he
hurt her was agony enough. His intention was to take
(33:40):
her out of the home, and he failed miserably at that.
He left her inside the home.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
He took off. We had a.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Letter, the ransom note, which is incredibly Gary one hundred percent.
If you knew Gary like I knew Gary, it's all
movie references and song lyrics, and it's long and it's rambling.
I could show you a suitcase full of letters just
like this.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
It's exactly his style.
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Keep in mind, he was drinking heavily.
Speaker 4 (34:12):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
You know, you're describing a disorganize a fender. So was
he under the influence at the time of its crime.
It was disorganized, you know, or under the influence.
Speaker 4 (34:25):
Yes, And he's admitted to me.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
He's admitted to me like he was under the influence
at the time. He said he was under the bridge alcoholic.
He was a good pass out under the bridge, drunk, alcoholic,
and he had access to a Mexican restaurant that he
would do the graveyard shift. At this Mexican restaurant, he
(34:47):
had access to the seller where they had all the alcohol.
He would tell me stories how he would drink until
he passed out, wake up in the cellar, and go
why am I in the cellar? And then another interesting tidbit.
There was a church in the back of John Benet's house,
Thomas Aquina Church, And now I was able to get
(35:10):
information to find out Gary actually had a key to
this church. He had run off copies of the keys,
and as long as he knew that, as long as
he was out of there by ten am, he would
never get caught there.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Why does he have a key to the church? Was
he a janitor or something?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Well?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
No, he actually was doing murals in the church, but
I don't think other people realized he had a key.
He told me he went to the lumberyard and ran
off copies he had access to the key. There was
a priest in training that was in that little house
right next to the church that the church owed, and
(35:49):
this priest in training saw that Gary was an amazing
artist and said, hey, why don't you do some murals
inside the cottage, and so Gary went to work and
did three beautiful murals in the cap and you know,
using paint brushes. By the way, if you want to
look at all the evidence, we go back to high
school when you would make collages of little girls with
(36:12):
darts in their butt and ropes tight around them. All
this evidence, the totality of the evidence, everything points to Gary.
So it's baffling to me when I would go on
a TV show or something and I literally was thinking
in my head, okay, the next day.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Gary would be arrested.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Well, this never happened because the reality is everybody was
set in their ways as to all the parents did it?
Or the nine year old kid?
Speaker 4 (36:39):
How could a nine.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Year old kid do something like this, I mean it's
just impossible. But people had already got this locked in
their head. And as a psychologist, I mean you would
know you can't. Once somebody's locked into a belief, it's
very difficult to get them to look at anything else.
I'm sure I've actually bred some of this and psychology books, yeah,
(37:01):
there is.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
That's difficult. So going back to the investigation piece, curious
about again, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence here. How
the detectives looked at this stuff and it has he
been interviewed recently? In other words, he said, there's new
investigators from the older police department.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah, there's new investigators as far as I know to
this point. Did they definitely have not interviewed Gary as
of recently. They did interview they. Gary had alibis from
two guys that were actually alcoholics, fellow alcoholics that he
would party with. Those were his alibis to the Boulder
(37:39):
police back in the day, back in ninety six ninety seven,
we had Alex Hunter who was so concerned about Gary
that he drove out to my house picked up hundreds
of letters of evidence because I had all this stuff
pre ninety six. And it's important when you look at
the ransom note to realize it was written in ninety six.
(38:00):
So to look at Gary's handwriting from twenty sixteen, which
was all uppercase, it's baffling to somebody a layman like me.
And it took Jason Jensen to notice that there was
an upper case in lowercase and the ransom note, and
so I was able to find some pre ninety six
handwriting and bingo, it was a perfect match to the
(38:23):
ransom note, startling match. Like I said, there is a
lot of details to this case. I will bind my
answering it correctly for you. If their handwriting expert, could
you compare those that sample or the example where you
have to the ransom note. They should be able to
or write with some confidence a conclusion about whether or
not it's a matron on.
Speaker 6 (38:44):
Has that been done?
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Here's the thing with the bold repd It's like we're
playing poker. These guys are ready to go to court.
These are court guys. They're thinking court now. They're so
they're hooked into this DNA philosophy. They're saying that there's
a new technology that's coming out in a year or
so that's going to solve all these problems and that
(39:06):
they'll be able to figure out the DNA. However, Jason
and I have got over this case with a fine
tooth comb. We feel that the DNA that they would
find would likely be the coroner who was pulling up
her underwear. It most likely could have been a police
officer that coughed near her body. It could have been
something as simple as that these are people that are
(39:29):
definitely not I have not been arrested for felonies. They're
not going to be in the codis. I tend to
believe ten percent. Hey, you know what, there might be
some DNA coming down the pike. Jason, on the other hand,
he's down to zero. He says, I'll let him speak
for himself. But Jason says that the DNA has been
compromised and that this is not a DNA case, and
(39:53):
to look at the totality of the evidence and rather
look at direct evidence such as the phone call I received,
which has been documented all the way from Alex Hunter
ending my lead to mister Ramsey in ninety seven, which
that's documented. And then you've got the Netflix special that
was on recently and even they said that Gary had
(40:16):
called me. So all this has been cooperated and here
we are in twenty twenty five. Oh, it's a shock
that nothing's been done with this case for so long.
It really is a.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
Shock, Jason. Do you think they're just saying, oh, we're
waiting for better technology for DNA analysis as a way
to just.
Speaker 6 (40:39):
Be like, keep in mind they're consulting with the prosecutors
obviously on this as well, like because they're taking this evidence,
or you know, they got this case, and they're talking
to the district attorney the local DA there about do
we have enough yet to charge?
Speaker 4 (40:54):
Right?
Speaker 6 (40:54):
And so again I don't know what's going on in
terms of their discussions, but this happens frequently where you
have a case that you work a homicide case and
you have circumstantial evidence you have in this case, degraded DNA,
and you don't have a confirmation, right, we don't have
a match. So you may have a DA that saying yeah,
maybe there's this is a potential suspect, but we just
(41:16):
don't have enough. You don't have enough to get a
conviction beyond reasonable doubt because remember that burden is much higher.
So the das were looking at things, you know, quite
differently than even you know investigators. They understand the burdens
as well. But I'm just wondering if you know, Jason
has any insights on that.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
Where they're at it takes careful understanding of where the
un one profile is located on each piece of evidence
that they've tested. Starting with what we do know is
there was block duct tape that was pulled off of
John Bennese mouth. On that block duct tape, there was
(41:54):
two profiles, two individual profiles and they matched John Ramsey
and Fleet wiped. Both of them handled the duct tape
as it was ripped from her mouth and afterwards because
Linda Art sent them down to go look throughout the
house again in hopes to find John Bennet, and they did,
(42:16):
and when John found her, she was supplying on the
floor in the cellar. So you know, naturally, your instinct
as a pair is I'm going to save my daughter.
I'm going to save my child. So he ripped off
the duct tape. He breathed some relief, and he picked
her up and ran her up the stairs, yell, and
(42:36):
I found her so naturally, though when Linda Art saw her,
she realized that she had already deceased. But meanwhile, there
was no un one profile on that duct tape.
Speaker 4 (42:50):
This was a.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
Premeditated crime if he had the wherewithal to come in
with duct tape, because what investigators learned is that piece
of duct tape was not found. There was not a
roll of duct tape found anywhere in the house, so
that was introduced into the crime scene by the perpetrator.
Anyone that handles duct tape knows it's highly sticky, So
(43:16):
if you handle it with your bare skin. It's gonna
not only leave epithelial skin cells on the duct tape,
it usually leads really good ridges of your print outline there,
so you can actually see your fingerprint in duct tape.
That's how sticky you know at this how much adhesion
(43:36):
is on the backside of duct tape. So we got
two profiles, none of them is you in one that
tells me in my crime scene reconstruction experience is that
the perpetrator had gloves on. He was not going to
leave his DNA. Was it gonna do something so stupid
is to leave his fingerprints on duct tape because in
(43:58):
nineteen ninety six, you know, I think in DNA, you're
thinking fingerprints. So he's got gloves on, you don't have to,
you know, take him off and on, off and on
to preserve the transfer fingerprints, like prime steam technicians worry
about nowadays. Now they have to actually have fresh buzz
for every piece of evidence that they handle or they
(44:19):
run the risk of transferring DNA from this article to
this article. And so what we have here and in
my opinion, is we have YU and one on the paintbrush.
We have you and one on the outer edges of
her long joms. There's one sample taken on the on
the left waistband, and two one being on the inside
(44:41):
one beyond the outside of her right waistband. Then you
had the YU and one mixed with the blood stain
at the center of the crutch of the underwear. We
also have U and one that was found underneath her
fingernails and on the core. And we know that she
was at her neck, So did she get the un
(45:03):
one from the cord? Was she handling touching something else
in the process. I believe where all that DNA source
comes from is from the paintbrush. If you look at
the paintbrush, it's a used paintbrush, so it's not a
forensically sterile piece, you know, paintbrush where it has no
(45:23):
DNA on it. But if he breaks the paintbrush and
now has the gloves contaminated with the UL one profile,
and we know that the UL one profile was found
on the paintbrush, so I believe it's not transferred from
the perpetrator to the paintbrush, but from the paintbrush to
the perpetrator. Then he touches the waist pan and he
(45:45):
uses the paintbrush to assault jumpin at and that's the
source of the blood. What we call a swite in
blood stained analysis. It was transferred. Blood was transferred from
the from the paint brush onto the underpants mixed with
the un one. So that's the source of that. And
(46:06):
why the blood came from that is because they found
microscopic pieces of the paintbrush vaginally, so that was used
to assault her with and so there's a swipe and
then now he's got soiled hands and pulls the breeches
back up and things of that nature. That's the source
of the DNA. I believe that one profile traces back,
(46:32):
not necessary to an individual ultimately through the chain of
the history of the paintbrush. But the U one doesn't
tie to the suspect in the crime scene. It ties
back to a piece of evidence.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
In the crime scene, the paintbrush.
Speaker 5 (46:47):
So either the paintbrush is introduced from the hum originally
someone else had touched it, or you on one was
brought in with the paintbrush from another source. And if
Gary was at the caretaker's cottage at the church only
thirteen doors down and in the crime scene was an
(47:07):
unknown rope that was introduced and left in the spare bedroom.
There was the cord that was not found to originate
anywhere in the home. The paint brush was alleged to
be part of Patsy's paint brush kit. Because there was
a paintbrush kit in the basement doesn't necessarily mean that
they're one and the same. But we know Gary was
(47:28):
painting at the cottage at the church just thirteen doors down.
How do we know he didn't bring in the paint
brush in his backpack along with the rope and the
cord and the duct tape. And we know the taser
that was used the stunt gun. No one has a
stunt gun, but we know that during Gary's two thousand arrests,
(47:48):
he was found in possession of a stun gun. So
you have all this evidence that ties to a type
of perpetrator equipped with certain piece of equipment. All these
things are tied to that individual, who may or may
not be unknown.
Speaker 4 (48:03):
But we know.
Speaker 5 (48:04):
Based on the suspicious nature of the phone call the
night of the murder. We know from subsequent confessions, including
admitting that it was an accident. You have to believe me,
I didn't mean to do this. I dropped her and
she died in my arms. All of that says Gary, Gary, Gary,
over and over again. And it's like, if Gary was
(48:25):
given a get out of jail free card, tell us everything,
you know, maybe he'd say, well, where the paintburst came
from and things like that. But as long as he's
on the radar and subject to potential arrest or being
vilified for the rest of pciety, he's not likely to
say anything. But that's what I believe. I believe that
the paintbrush and these things like the rope and whatnot
(48:49):
comes from the church down the street.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
And I wanted to mention that the autopsy I believe
showed that John Benet Ramsey had taste remarks something I
feel like people leave out. It's very critical that Gary
Olive at the time carried a taser, which is very specific.
Now i'd want to know if he also carried gloves
(49:12):
in his backpack. And I don't know if you've ever
had the opportunity, Michael to ask him about ask him
directly if he wore gloves.
Speaker 4 (49:20):
Oh yeah, I asked him.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
I said, Hey, how do you think there was not
some more DNA left at the crime scene? And he
said he looked up at me, and he said one word,
he said, gloves.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (49:30):
I'll also keep in mind it was cold, it was winter,
and you normally would wear gloves to keep your hands warm.
And one other little point of view is that of
statue of limitations on and manslaughter is a three year
statue limitations. So we may have some problems with the
justice here, but at least we know the truth.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yeah, thank you for sharing.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
I know when you just joined us before we started
this episode. Guess who called Gary on the phone calling Michael.
Michael didn't take the call. And I know you know
you've been to Colorado to visit him and talk to him. Actually,
we're going to be in Colorado for Crime con this September,
(50:14):
at least I know Jason Jensen and I are. And
you know, there's always an opportunity to have a conversation
directly with him, and I'm not sure if you'd be
willing to do that or I know you're very familiar
with him and what motivates him. So tell me about
currently just your conversations, where you're at now with him
(50:38):
and your correspondence. Are you're still receiving You're still receiving
letters and phone calls from him.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
Right, there's a weird thing about me that I'd look
for the good in anybody, and this, I know it
sounds crazy, but with Gary, if I figure, if he
keeps busy doing art and drawing and he goes to
these therapy classes he's going to he's aware that he
has these issues, it's gonna help. I can't imagine what
(51:05):
it's like to have these kind of fantasies in your head. Conversely,
you know, I am getting letters and I'm getting some
amazing art from him. It just gets better and better.
He's steered away from some of the beheading stuff and
he's doing more landscapes with a giant spatula with an
egg in the middle of a desert landscape. Just then,
(51:27):
that's the kind of stuff that we want to see
from Gary. He doesn't really want to go on a
TV show. He doesn't want to talk to In fact,
and when he was in prison, he had ten requests
from media to talk with him. He turned them all down.
The only one he did take wasn't media. It was
Dog the Bounty Hunter. So he actually met with the
(51:48):
owner of the Dog the Bounty Hunter. It's an interesting story.
I would say why not why not do an interview?
They know? I mean, why not? I could see if
I could push that through for you. I can tell
you just my gut feeling is he wouldn't want anything
to do with that. He did mention that he was
worried about his reputation, and I'm like, dude, you've already been.
Speaker 4 (52:14):
Outed for twenty seven years.
Speaker 5 (52:17):
What he doesn't understand is this is I hate to say,
infamous quality kind of situation. But rather than being vilified,
if he came clean and brought justice and closure for everybody,
it actually is a moment for somebody who has done
bad deeds who's reformed, to be almost honored as, hey,
(52:43):
you know you've done the right thing. Everybody can change
their life, and you know, being a Christian society, we
believe in forgiveness. So if he wanted to come clean
and come forward, he'd likely do some time in prison again.
But it's not anything he's not into. But it gets
it over with, comes clean, gets a new slight in life,
(53:05):
and people would look at him as a model criminal
who's reformed and had a chance to also become infamous
in the process.
Speaker 6 (53:19):
Of course, that depends on again, you said doing some
time in prison, like if he did stay, admit, or
come clean, essentially, if they charged murder versus manslaughter, which
might well commented on the statute limitations for manslaughter Colorado.
I don't know there's statute of limitations, but I would
argue that first degree or second degree murder, which it
(53:39):
requires intent to kill, there are no statute limitations on that.
So it would depend on what the DA decided to
do in terms of charging, you know, as far as
like what that prison sentence might look like. If he
ever did, you know, come clean, and they have that
evidence that corroborated, his statement alone may not believe it
or not be enough, or his confession alone may not
necessarily be enough, just from a preceptorial standpoint, because wherever
(54:02):
they still have to prove all those elements beyond reasonable doubts.
So that's an interesting thing to think about. Yeah, it's
interesting because they've had the confessional letter since twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, I received twelve letters confessing to it. But
that's just not enough to convict somebody. Correct, He theoretically
could go on your show say he did it, and
(54:25):
to explain his regrets and his grief and the torture
he's been going through and putting on himself and his
own ad and you know, and not be convicted after
twenty eight years. I can't predict what's going to happen tomorrow,
but it seems like it's been an awfully long time.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Well, Jason Jensen and I are we're going to be
in Colorado for Crime com. We're trying to get Craig
to go with us.
Speaker 6 (54:51):
Sounds fun, is it in Denvor?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Yes, you need to go.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
We're going to be there and maybe Jerial Leva can
join us for dinner have a discussion.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
But thank you so.
Speaker 1 (55:01):
Much Michael Bell for having a discussion with us today.
I'm sure you didn't imagine your life that this is
what you'd be affiliated with, or you know this would
be going on this long, but here you are. I
appreciate your time.
Speaker 3 (55:17):
It would have been great to be recognized for my
career and all the good stuff that I did in
my career instead of when you google my name and
this comes up. Yeah, you never expect that to happen.
It's definitely a chalk Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:30):
And thank you Jason Jensen and Craig Letter.
Speaker 5 (55:34):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
We will definitely do more episodes together. So I appreciate
all your time today, so thank you. Thank you for
listening to Killer Psychologist. To watch full video episodes or
if you want to interact with me, you can find
a Killer Psychologist on YouTube. You can also get notified
(55:58):
of new episodes by signing up my stand store Now.
If you want to work with me, you can book
a console. My website is psychologydoctor dot com. That's Psychology
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